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OPEN STANDARDS CASE STUDY TEMPLATE By sharing real-life case studies of how the Open Standards conservation approach is used at different scales and for different types of projects, conservation practitioners around the World can learn from each others’ successes, innovations and blunders. This template has been developed so that we can collect and share lessons learned from the field in a standardized way. If you would like to submit a case study, please fill out this template, save it with a name that refers to your project and send it to Cristina Lasch at clasch@tnc.org.

This template consists of two sections. The first asks for general information that colleagues will be able to read quickly to determine if your case study interests them. The second section requests more in-depth information for people who want to know the specifics of your management approach and lessons, but you can chose which sections to fill out in more detail.

Please use the shaded fields to type, the field will adjust as you enter your information. To select a checkbox, please double click on it and chose the “checked” option.

The members of the Conservation Coaches Network thank you for your willingness to give something back to our community!

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Section One: Case study at-a-glance

This section asks you to provide the basics of your project, so we can set it up in a searchable database on the internet. Required fields are marked with an *.

Project name *: WWF Markets Transformation Initiative Project URL on ConPro1

Note: if your project is not already on ConPro, please share it by accessing this link: *: forthcoming

http://conpro.tnc.org/ Contact Name *: Nick Salafsky / Andy Murphy Organization *: Foundations of Success / WWF E-mail address *: nick@fosonline.org / Andrew.Murphy@WWFUS.ORG Other links to web-based project information: http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/how_we_work/businesses/transforming_markets/solutions/ Photo to illustrate your project

Date this form was completed *: September 24, 2010 Project start date *: November 1, 2009 What main actions does your project focus on? * Please check all that apply IUCN-CMP classification of conservation actions (version 1.1)

Definition

Land/water protection actions to dentify, establish or expand parks and other legally protected areas, and to protect resource rights

Land/water management

actions directed at conserving or restoring sites, habitats and the wider environment

Species management

actions directed at managing or restoring species, focused on the species of concern itself

1 ConPro is a searchable project repository where members of the Coaches Conservation Network have agreed to share their projects. You can access it at the following link: http://conpro.tnc.org/

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Education and awareness

actions directed at people to improve understanding and skills, and influence behavior

Law and policy

actions to develop, change, influence, and help implement formal legislation, regulations, and voluntary standards

Livelihood, economic and other incentives

actions to use economic and other incentives to influence behavior

External capacity building

Other

actions to build the infrastructure to do better conservation please specify here:

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What is the scope or boundary type of your project? Please check all that apply Ecological boundaries:

Large land- or sea-scape Multiple sites / network

of sites Species-level crossing

landscapes Threat-oriented crossing

landscapes Site-based

Political boundaries: Global Multi-national Country-based State, province,

municipality Village or

community

Resource ownership: Indigenous or communal Private Government (federal,

state, municipal)

Other: please specify here Large Thematic Initiative Who designed the project? WWF Market Transformation Initiative Who implements the project? WWF Market Transformation Initiative Does this case study represent the full cycle of the Open Standards?

Yes (if you selected this option, you can skip to the next field/box) No (if you selected this option, please specify the steps below

Which specific steps of the Open Standards does your case study deal with? 1. Conceptualize:

1A Define initial project team 1B Define scope, vision, and targets 1C Identify critical threats 1D Complete situation analysis

2. Plan your actions and monitoring:

2A Develop a formal action plan: Goals, strategies, assumptions, and objectives 2B Develop a formal monitoring plan 2C Develop an operational plan

3. Implement actions and monitoring:

3A Develop a detailed short-term work plan and timeline 3B Develop and refine your project budget 3C Implement your plans

4. Analyze, use, adapt:

4A Prepare your data for analysis 4B Analyze results 4C Adapt your strategic plan

5. Capture and share learning:

5A Document what you learn 5B Share what you learn 5C Create a learning environment

What adaptations/innovations, if any, did you make when applying the OS (full cycle or specific steps) to this case study?

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The WWF Market Transformation Initiative (MTI) represents an innovative application of the WWF Project and Programme Standards to a large, high profile, non-place-based program that seeks to transform the production of basic commodities such as soy, cotton, timber, beef, and whitefish to be more sustainable. MTI seeks to change the behavior of companies at key leverage points along the chain that links commodity producers to the retailers that provide them to consumers. The Standards were used to develop a truly strategic plan for the MTI as well as to establish a monitoring system that is being used to both document progress and to adaptively make decisions as to how to best deploy resources to acheive maximum impact. This monitoring system included developing a database that is now providing critical information to managers. What key lessons did you learn in applying the OS (full cycle or specific steps) to this case study? Later on you will be able to explain these or other more minor lessons in more detail. 1) Truly strategic planning involves determining not just what you will focus on, but also what you will not work on. 2) Results chains were of immense utility in helping to determine a limited and realistic set of monitoring indicators. 3) It was also vital to work with MTI Core Staff to develop mockups of final reports as a way of determining the most critical monitoring needs. Based on these key lessons, what one or two things would you recommend other teams do that you found really helped your team to “keep the adaptive management wheel moving?” As stated above, it is critical to start from the desired final reports and design the monitoring system backwards from that point. It is also important to think about data systems from the perspective of both entering data in, as well as getting information out. Describe how your team’s good practice of the Open Standards contributed to important conservation results so far? Although the MTI is still a work in progess, it represents one of the most ambitious attempts to change commodity production - one of the most important threats to biodiversity around the world - on a truly global scale. If we are going to transform these markets, we need to be both strategic and efficient. MTI's clear strategy and simple yet systematic monitoring system will hopefully enable the MTI team to meet these challenges.

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Project Photo

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Section Two: Case study – detailed description

This section provides space where you can share more detailed information about best practices and lessons learned. Our intention is to focus on information that complements project data already available on ConPro, so there is no need to share basic project information here.

The structure follows the steps of the Open Standards, so we have provided reference information on what each step and associated outputs.

In the “Lessons learned” section, you only need to fill out the areas where you have something to tell, so if you feel you have nothing to share about an entire step, it’s OK. Feel free to tell your story in your own style, share images or hyperlinks to videoclips and other support materials that illustrate your approach and recommendations.

Lessons learned - Open Standards for the Practice of Conservation

Lessons learned from Step 1: Conceptualize Please share any innovations or positive findings you may have for this step. See below. The MTNI is the ultimate high-leverage strategy. Every person in the world’s six billion plus human population is a consumer of resources, albeit with vastly different impacts. These consumers can be represented by the top of a champagne glass as shown in Figure 1. Figure 1. The MTI Theory of Change

At the bottom of the glass are the more than a billion people that produce or extract natural resources for global markets. Although it is hard to reach these vast numbers of consumers and

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producers directly, the two groups are linked to each other through narrow supply chains each dominated by only a few hundred companies globally, represented by the stem of the glass. For example:

• More than three-quarters of global soy trade is controlled by four companies.

• Marine Harvest produces and processes nearly 35% of farmed salmon.

• Coca-Cola buys about 5% of globally traded sugar.

• Wal-Mart’s own brands equal approximately 2.8% global cotton retail sales. IKEA and GAP each represent 2% of global demand.

• Five companies produce 75% of all European consumer tissue products. Targeting key players in the supply chain thus provides a strong lever for WWF to effect change. Rather than working with 1 billion producers, or with more than 6 billion consumers, WWF can target the 400 or so global companies that control 70% of consumer choice. The primary actors in this approach are production and processing companies, commodity traders, brands/manufacturers, and retailers. Financial institutions are also key leverage points in each supply chain. This supply chain was tailor made to show in a conceptual model (Figure 2).

Figure 2. The MTI Theory of Change in Conceptual Model Format for the Sugar Trade

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What, if any, opportunities are there for improving the way you implemented this step? N/A What, if any, recommendations do you have for others implementing this step? N/A

Reference information about Step 1, which can help you think about ideas you want to share: This first step involves the following: Outputs for each standard practice within this step include:

1A. Define initial project team

• Selection of initial project team, including project leader, core members, and advisory members.

• Identification of key skills each team member brings. • Designation of roles and responsibilities.

1B. Define scope, vision, and targets

• A brief description of the project scope. • If appropriate, a map of the project area (GIS file or hand

sketch). • A vision statement for the project. • Selection of conservation targets, including a brief

explanation of why they were chosen. • A description of the status of each priority conservation

target. 1C. Identify critical threats

• Identification of critical threats. • Rating or ranking of direct threats to identify critical threats.

1D. Complete situation analysis

• Identification and analysis of indirect threats and opportunities.

• Assessment of stakeholders. • Initial conceptual model that illustrates cause and effect

relationships among factors operating at your site. • Ground-truthing and revision of your model.

Lessons learned from Step 2: Plan your actions and monitoring Please share any innovations or positive findings you may have for this step. See below. One of the most important steps that the MTI took was to early on try to strategically narrow the list of commodities on which they would initially focus. After doing some background research, we convened key team members to present and then go through a group prioritization exercise. Figure 4 shows the results of the relative commodity rating exercise that we undertook. This exercise enabled the MTI team to both determine what it would focus on, as well as it what it would not focus on, at least for its initial work.

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Figure 4. Prioritization of Commodities

Commodity Impact

on Priority Places

WWF Network Influence

Contrib. to Green House

Gas Emis

Gap in focus by NGO

Community Urgency Impact on

Water Ranking Current Capacity within WWF

AGRICUTLURE & FORESTS Livestock/Beef 10 4 11 11 11 9 56 4 Pulp and Paper 9 10 9 5 9 7 49 10 Livestock/Dairy 5 4 10 8 8 10 45 2 Palm oil 7 9 8 3 10 3 40 9 Round wood 11 11 6 2 6 4 40 11 Sugarcane 8 7 4 9 5 6 39 6 Rice 4 1 7 10 3 11 36 5 Soy 6 8 5 4 7 5 35 8 Cotton 3 6 3 7 4 8 31 7 Cocoa* 1 4 1 6 1 1 14 3 Coffee* 2 2 2 1 2 2 11 1 MARINE: Tuna 3 2 4 3 4 N/A 16 3 Whitefish 2 4 2.5 1 3 N/A 12.5 4 Shrimp 4 1 2.5 2 2 N/A 11.5 2 Forage Fish 1 3 1 4 1 N/A 10 1 AQUACULTURE Shrimp 2 1 2 2 1 2 10 1 Salmon 1 2 1 1 2 N/A 7 2 Tilapia* Catfish*

*These are locally important commodites that are often important to the companies we work with *Tilapia & catfish are both locally import to places, and also important to many seafood companies

A second key was to develop a results chain showing a clear theory of change for transforming each priority commodity. As shown in Figure 5, this chain involves working at the level of the commodity, as well as changing behavior in key companies involved in each commodity. This results chain was also essential for helping to develop the “code book” for monitoring indicators (see Figure 6 for two examples).

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Figure 5. The MTI Basic Results Chain for Each Prioritized Commodity

This results chain was also essential for helping to develop the “code book” for monitoring indicators (see Figure 6 for two examples).

Figure 6. Two Excerpts from the Monitoring System Codebook

What, if any, opportunities are there for improving the way you implemented this step? NA What, if any, recommendations do you have for others implementing this step? NA

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Reference information about Step 2, which can help you think about ideas you want to share:

This first step involves the following: Outputs for each standard practice within this step include:

2A. Develop a formal action plan: Goals, strategies, assumptions, and objectives

• Goals for each target. • Identification of “key factors” and draft strategies. • Ranking of draft strategies. • Results chains that specify assumtpions for key

strategies. • Objectives for key factors.

2B. Develop a formal monitoring plan

• Audiences and their associated information needs clearly defined.

• Indicators defined. • Finalized Monitoring Plan.

2C. Develop an operational plan

• Assessment of human, financial, and other resources. • Risk assessment and mitigation. • Estimate of lifespan and exit strategy.

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Lessons learned from Step 3: Implement actions and monitoring

Please share any innovations or positive findings you may have for this step. In order to get commmodity and company leads comfortable with the monitoring system, MTI core staff had to take each lead person through the data collection process at least one time. This also had the advantage of enabling us to field test and refine the data collection fields to make them more useful and more meaningful. It also proved to be very helpful that senior MTI leaders generally had strong support for the monitoring system and thus provided "pressure" to their staff to fill out the information. Finally, it was incredibly useful to have one key staff person who kept exhorting us to keep the monitoring system as simple as possible -- her voice was a constant reminder when we kept trying to expand the scope of the system and make it fancier. What, if any, opportunities are there for improving the way you implemented this step? It proved to be quite a challenge to get many folks to be comfortable with putting in "approximate" data even if it was marked as such. We started with 4 point qualitative ranking scales for lots of variable, but then moved to percentages for many for many of these because they offer a much more flexible way of showing data both at a high level (e.g. 0%, 25%. 50%. 75%. 100%) or at a very precise level (37.3%) as shown in the second figure in Figure 6. Still, people have to be coached and trained to put their best availalble knowledge in the system. What, if any, recommendations do you have for others implementing this step? Keep the monitoring system as simple as possible. Fight the tendency to add more information because you can. Build the system so that it can accommodate both high level guesses AND precise data. Reference information about Step 3, which can help you think about ideas you want to share:

This first step involves the following: Outputs for each standard practice within this step include: 3A. Develop a detailed short-term work plan and timeline

• Work plan detailing the tasks, activities, and responsibilities associated with your Action Plan, Monitoring Plan, and Operational Plan.

• Project timeline or calendar. 3B. Develop and refine your project budget

• Project budget. • Potential funding sources identified. • Funding proposals developed and submitted. • Financial resources obtained.

3C. Implement your plans • Generally, implementation of strategic plan (action, monitoring, and operational plans).

• More specifically, implementation of your work plan, keeping in mind your project budget and schedule.

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Lessons learned from Step 4: Analyze, use, adapt

Please share any innovations or positive findings you may have for this step. See below. Perhaps the most important thing that we did here was to early on, hire and work with two consultants who helped us build a database to house the information being collected by the monitoring system. This process of building a Sharepoint/Access system went a long way towards helping us to refine and clarify our thinking. However, building data systems is an expensive and complex undertaking. It was very useful to adopt an “agile” as opposed to “waterfall” development process in which we could adjust the system as our key users tried it and developed new ideas as to what it could do for them. It also helped to have good working interfaces between the software developers and key users of the system so that we could translate effectively between these two worlds. We also asked the MTI managers and staff to early on develop sketches of the final reports that they wanted for management purposes (see Figure 7 for two examples). This was critical in helping us determine the analyses that the system needed to be able to complete.

Figure 7a. Mockup of Commodity Report

Figure 7b. Excel-based Mock-Up of Company Scorecard

Sample Scorecard for Key Companies at Leverage Points on Value Chain for Each Commodity

KEY COMPANIES (3-1) AWARENESS (3-2) POLICIES & TARGETS(3-3) ADOPT SUSTAINABLE SOURCINGRetailers Sales ($m) Market Share Awareness Notes Policies Notes % Sustainable Score Notes Supply Chain Policy Makers Notesaaaaa ##,###,### 22% 4 4 85% 3 4 4bbbb ##,###,### 18% 2 1 5% 1 1 1cccc #,###,### 10% 4 2 45% 2 2 2dddd #,###,### 9% 1 1 < 1% 1 1 1eeee #,###,### 7% 4 4 95% 4 3 1ffff ###,### 5% 4 3 60% 3 3 3gggg ###,### 4% ? ? ? 1 ? ?hhhh ##,### 3% 2 2 2% 1 1 1iiii ##,### 2% ? ? ? 1 ? ?etc.

Score Awareness Policies % Stock/Sales Sustainable Supply Chain Policy Makers4= Good high level mtgs Adopted written > 90% Very high Very high 3= Some good mtgs Draft written 50 - 90% High High2= Mtgs go nowhere Some paperwork 20-50% Medium Medium1= Brush off Nothing < 20% Low Low

(4) WILLINGNESS TO ENGAGE…

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What, if any, opportunities are there for improving the way you implemented this step? It is a challenge to keep the data current and to get the managers to make consultation of the data a part of the regular strategic planning process. Hopefully in the future, the data system will be a regular component of the MTI business process. What, if any, recommendations do you have for others implementing this step? As stated above, it is critical to start from the desired final reports and design the monitoring system backwards from that point. It is also important to think about data systems from the perspective of both entering data in, as well as getting information out. Reference information about Step 4, which can help you think about ideas you want to share:

This first step involves the following: Outputs for each standard practice within this step include: 4A. Prepare your data for analysis

• Development and regular use of systems for recording, storing, processing and backing up project data.

4B. Analyze results • Analyses of project results and assumptions. • Analyses of operational and financial data. • Documentation of discussions and decisions.

4C. Adapt your strategic plan • Revised project documents (including action plan, operational plan, work plan, and budget).

Lessons learned from Step 5: Capture and share learning Please share any innovations or positive findings you may have for this step. Again, as stated above, the key here is to make use of the monitoring data a regular part of the routine business of the MTI. We are hoping to make extensive use of results chains at an upcoming MTI meeting to get commodity leads in different sectors to compare their experiences and identify similarities and differences as a way of promoting learning. What, if any, opportunities are there for improving the way you implemented this step? It has proven challenging to figure out how to extend learning beyond the core team to the key managers responsible for different companies and commodities. Hopefully examples like the upcoming workshop described above will help in this regard. What, if any, recommendations do you have for others implementing this step? NA. Reference information about Step 4, which can help you think about ideas you want to share:

This first step involves the following: Outputs for each standard practice within this step include: 5A. Document what you learn

• Documentation of key results

5B. Share what you learn • Identification of key audiences.

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This first step involves the following: Outputs for each standard practice within this step include: • Development of a communications strategy.

• Regular reports of other types of communication to project team members and key stakeholders.

• Development and distribution of appropriate communication products.

• Use of other people’s communication products. 5C. Create a learning environment

• Regular feedback shared formally or informally. • Evaluations and/or audits at appropriate times during the

project cycle. • Demonstrated commitment from leaders to learning and

innovation. • A safe environment for encouraging experimentation and

questioning the status quo. • A commitment to share success and failures with

practitioners around the world.

Lessons learned from applying the full cycle of the Open Standards: Your comments here can focus on the project itself, and/or the way the full cycle was applied. What, if anything else, would you like to share, on innovations or positive findings about closing the loop, or your application of the full cycle? The Project and Programme Standards are hopefully helping bring conceptual clarity and real-time information to one of the largest and most complex and ambitious conservation programs ever attempted. Please share any opportunities for improvement, based on your application of the full cycle. N/A Please provide recommendations for others, if relevant, based on your application of the full cycle. N/A

Thanks for sharing your work!